


Eleven Days

by crackleviolet



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Reset Theory (Mystic Messenger)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 04:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12403176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackleviolet/pseuds/crackleviolet
Summary: V route got me thinking about reset theory, weirdly enough. Imagine if V was the one who kept resetting?Anyway, that’s what this fic is. V dies every eleven days and tries to break the cycle. JuminV | Teen Rating | SPOILERS FOR V ROUTE





	Eleven Days

The first time he dies, it’s from a bullet to the chest.

At the time, Jihyun smiles, considering the agony quite beautiful, as for the first time in his life he does not only bleed on the inside. His final thoughts as he bleeds out are ones of contentment, of blue skies and sunlight and warm hands and other gentle things.

He wonders if there is a better way to die than for love, concluding as he closes his eyes that he can think of nothing more elegant.

The last thing he expects is to wake in a cold sweat only a matter of moments later, sunlight shining through every single one of his apartment windows. At first he wonders if he has arrived in some form of afterlife; if heaven is in the same vein as a conversation he had once with a casual acquaintance in the smoking side of a restaurant he no longer remembers the name of.

“If Heaven is real,” they said, stubbing out their cigarette butt, “I imagine it’s little more than an idealised version of what we have now. Forget those pearly gates and wings. What about being content for eternity?”

At the time he laughed, considering such a thing idealistic, though as he wanders his empty apartment, he cannot help but wonder if they were right. It is exactly as he remembers it: unopened letters on the mat and only coffee in his kitchen cupboards. On the kitchen worktop is the same abandoned newspaper he read eleven days ago.

He goes into the bathroom last of all, peeling up his shirt out of a morbid sort of curiosity. He is not sure what he expects to find, yet finds himself disappointed anyway when his exposed body shows no sign of a bullet. There is no scar on his chest, no bruise, no blood. It is as if it never touched him and he runs his fingers over the unbroken skin.

He remembers each one of his last breaths and dying thoughts. He remembers the feel of the bullet against his body but now, though, he wonders if it was little more than an incredibly vivid dream.

He still traces the non existent entry wound as he picks up his phone to call Jumin, unsure exactly what he means to say to him, but desperate to speak to someone. Somewhat thankfully, he catches him in the middle of preparing his notes for a meeting and each of his words are punctuated by the shuffling of paper.

“I had a feeling you were going to call me. Admittedly, I didn’t think it would be this early.”

“You did?”

The last time Jihyun spoke to Jumin, they had an argument. From his jovial tone, however, Jihyun finds it difficult to believe that that is what he is referring to.

“Yes,” says Jumin, pen scratching at paper somewhere in the background. “I assume you have a plan for the girl? Even if she is telling the truth, her arrival in Rika’s apartment is suspicious to say the least.”

Jihyun blinks at this, holding the phone away from his ear for a moment. Truthfully, they had a conversation almost exactly like this several days ago and he does not understand Jumin’s reasons for bringing it up again. Only two days ago, Jumin praised that same girl and her organisational abilities, deciding that he would offer her a job when the party was over. Jihyun cannot help but wonder what swayed his opinion.

“You worry too much,” he says, and he’s almost certain he sounds dismissive. “Anyway, I thought you were going to hire her? Did something change?”

Jumin pauses for a second, papers and all.

“Hire her?”

He considers the question like a vintage red.

“That seems only fair,” is his eventual response. “I’m sure there are spots open in marketing.”

Jihyun wonders if he forgot their conversation only a few days before. It seems unlikely, but there again, so are his present circumstances. He considers it long after Jumin hangs up and departs for his morning meeting, staring at his phone screen with little in the way of focus. 

A full five minutes have passed before he notices the date on his phone screen is eleven days ago.

At first he believes it to be a mistake; a flaw of technology, the likes of which he often hears about on television or from Luciel. He dismisses it until he switches on the television and is greeted by breaking news from eleven days earlier. Strangely enough, the proof is harder to accept than any amount of missing bruises. Jihyun does not believe in time travel, but there does not seem to be any other explanation.

He considers his situation for so long that he gives himself a headache and takes aspirin over black coffee. If he really did cheat death and travel through time, there must be a reason. Something he missed in that first eleven days.

The second time he dies, it’s from a rope to the throat.

The last thing he remembers is Rika’s perfume; soft words cutting the night air.

His final thoughts this time are ones of self loathing for wasting his second chance. He wonders why he was even given one if he was doomed to fail from the beginning.

He is not sure how to react when it all fades to black and he wakes in his apartment eleven days earlier. As before, there is no physical sign of anything that happened to him beyond the fingers that tremble at his throat.

He drinks another cup of coffee and takes another aspirin, oddly optimistic now that he thinks he has seen the pattern.

His third death is underwater, weighted by a stone. The fourth is in a cell. The fifth is from a different gun, held to his temple. He becomes overly familiar with the cycle of those eleven days, as if they are not days at all, but a city he knows too well. Jihyun remembers each one of his deaths; he recalls the taste of blood on his lips and the tides against his body.

After his sixth death, he comes to wonder where exactly he is going wrong. He has adapted to each wrong decision, made multiple different apologies and begged for the lives of his friends with more desperation than ordinarily he would believe possible. He has memorised the corridors of the Mint Eye castle, now knowing by heart the movements of most of the guards. It seems that no matter how well he learns from his mistakes, he is doomed to die on day eleven by one unfortunate circumstance or another.

He dies of smoke inhalation on the seventh attempt and for the first time in a long time thinks of his mother. Perhaps she too woke in her bed and was able to prevent the flames from spreading. Perhaps, when faced again with the choice, she chose to leave him behind. It is a curious thought and one that leaves him staring into his coffee cup.

After his eighth resurrection, he does not bother to make a cup of coffee or help himself to aspirin and instead drives to the spot his mother’s house used to be before its ashes hit the open air. At the time he never believed the sun would shine there ever again; deliberately or not, his every memory of the place is lost to smoke.

It is strange to walk through the grass of this long forgotten place, taking in the endless expanse of green before him and hazy sunlight. Deep in his heart, he wants to run his fingers along the ground and welcome himself back home, but he is not sure such a thing is appropriate. This is a place he no longer knows, after all.

For days he sits at the back of his car, taking in the reds and oranges of the sky. He leaves only at short intervals, to slip in and out of grocery stores and top up on water, not knowing what it is he’s waiting for even as he lays back to watch the stars through the sunroof of his car.

He remembers the fire; the desperation in his mother’s eyes. He remembers the sharpness of her nails against his arm and the softness of the words in her journals. Her only wish was for him to live and find love and he finds it awfully ironic now.

When he gets home, Jumin stands in his kitchen, reading the newspaper from eleven days ago. Jihyun can tell without asking that he did not come to exchange pleasantries.

“I expect you have an explanation.”

Jumin’s greeting is cold and for a moment Jihyun wonders why. The past few weeks are an indiscernable mess of bad decisions.

“What do you mean?”

Within seconds he regrets asking. Jumin casts aside the newspaper and barrels into him, grabbing him by the shoulders as he shoves him into the kitchen counter.

“What do I mean?” He says, irony dripping from every syllable. “I mean to ask what is so wrong with you that you cannot even attend the party you asked for.”

Oh. He remembers now.

After multiple experiments, he decided it was not worth intervening in the actions of the girl in the apartment. Around the time of his third revival, he urged her to leave, only for events to take a severe turn. He did not ask for a party at all on the second, only for the girl to get insist upon leaving the apartment of her own accord and triggering the security system.

If he has learned anything, however regretfully, it is that the girl is an innocent and the other members of the RFA will protect her as far as they are able. He lost track of the days this time around, though, and from Jumin’s formal attire he guesses he missed the party entirely.

“I…”

He wonders how to explain his situation in a way that makes perfect sense. He cannot tell Jumin about his revivals, that much is for certain.

“Whatever it is,” he says, misinterpreting his conflicted expression, “tell me.”

Jihyun crumbles without breathing a word, offering no resistance to Jumin’s grip on his shoulders. It’s day eleven now and he is tired of being too powerless to stop himself being revived; too powerless to save anyone he loves. He believed he might be content if he could only make a difference, but over the past few months his decisions have only ever had dire consequences. He cannot bring himself to understand why of all people this is happening to him; why he has had so many chances when more deserving people get none.

He cannot say any of this to Jumin, though, and instead rests his head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry…I just…I don’t want to die anymore.”

Jumin’s hold on him loosens and Jihyun has no doubts that he has misinterpreted that too.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just very tired.”

That night, Jumin does not leave. Instead he takes off his jacket and gloves and sets about searching the cupboard for something to eat. Something to clear his head, he explains, though Jihyun knows him well enough to understand he is searching for sense in an absurd situation. When Jumin finally finds a long forgotten packet of pancake mix and organises the ingredients, it is to organise his thoughts as well.

The pancakes are stale and he has no toppings, so Jumin makes coffee instead, silently arranging everything onto plates and setting them on the dinner table. Jihyun is oddly reminded of early mornings when they were barely tall enough to reach the kitchen counter.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” He says, considering that Jumin has not asked him for any further clarification.

“I’m sure you will tell me at the right time.”

The answer is so much like him that Jihyun cannot help but chuckle.

They sit in silence for most of the meal, the silence only broken by their knives and forks and the occasional buzz of Jumin’s cell phone. Every so often, Jihyun finds himself glancing across at the clock on his wall, midnight growing closer and melancholy setting in.

He goes to bed at eleven, conscious of every ticking of the clock.

“Will you stay with me?” He asks before Jumin can announce his departure. This is the first time he has really spent time with anyone and knowing that it will be erased come morning leaves him feeling lonelier than he believed possible.

They have not shared a bed since they were much younger and Jumin is hesitant to relax his head against the pillows. Jihyun feels the tension in his body as he leans his head into his chest, taking in the beating of his heart. When did they grow so old and distant, he wonders, eyes drooping closed. Everything about Jumin is familiar, from his scent to the warmth in his hands and feet. Lying beside him is like going home.

As the tension leaves Jumin’s body and he drapes an arm across his middle, it occurs to him that there is nothing at all elegant about dying for love. He wants to be remembered for his compassion; not the scars he leaves behind.

The last thing to cross his mind is how very warm Jumin’s arms are against his body; warm, heavy and safe even if only for one night.

The next morning dawns warm and bright and Jihyun wakes to a cold bed. That much does not surprise him- he is getting used to the routine by now-and finds himself miserably smoothing a hand across the other side of the covers. He climbs out of bed and pulls on his clothes, poking at the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes as he brushes his teeth.

Perhaps he will never age if he never lives past day eleven. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

When he enters the kitchen, it’s to make coffee. He does not have a plan this time around and he supposes he should make one; he does not expect to see Jumin standing at the hob, putting together buttermilk pancakes. Jihyun cannot believe his eyes and remains frozen in the doorway, expecting to wake up at any moment, eleven days earlier where none of this is real. Jumin realises he is being watched, though, and turns towards him with a soft smile.

“Sorry if I woke you. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d make breakfast, so I picked up a few groceries.”

Jihyun approaches the kitchen counter, slowly opening each of his cupboards and laughing inwardly at the realisation that Jumin’s understanding of ‘a few groceries’ is to fill his cupboards to the brim with wines, cheeses and truffle oil.

“It’s no problem,” he says, picking up the nearest bottle of wine and turning it over in his hands to view the label. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

He spots the newspaper last of all, once their pancakes are finished and they sit down to eat. By now he has memorised the articles in the one from eleven days before, so he realises that this one is new without having to check the date. When he sees it is dated eleven days after the first, relief floods through him and he cannot help but sob.

“V,” says Jumin, “you’ve been acting very strangely. Is there something..?”

“No,” he says, laughter breaking through the tears. “No, not at all.”

He sets aside the newspaper and dries his eyes.

“Not anymore.”


End file.
